Pivot - Nike's CEO Shake-up, Trump's "Deranged" Messaging, and Guests Kate Conger and Ryan Mac

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss Microsoft's plan to reopen Three Mile Island to power its data centers, and Qualcomm's potential takeover of Intel. Then, Nike gets a new CEO, but will the corporate shake-up get Nike back in the game? Plus, Trump's bizarre messaging around abortion, and Kamala Harris's attempt to get another debate on the calendar. Our Friends of Pivot are New York Times reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, who are out with a new book, "Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter." Kate and Ryan share behind-the-scenes stories from Elon's Twitter takeover, and weigh in on the latest chaos in Elon-land. Follow Kate at @KateConger and Ryan at @RMac18. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, where are you today? I was in Madrid the last couple of days, but I got an early flight back and I'm back in London. You're all over the map. Why is that? May I ask? I was in Madrid for a speaking gig, the American Equity Insurance Conference. That was a laugh riot. Oh my God. Those guys know how to party. They do. It must be fun. But you're in Madrid. You're in Madrid. Oh, by the way, so I love, in my predictions deck, I predict cities of the year. And I love

the idea of a lifestyle arbitrage. So 10 years ago, the ultimate lifestyle arbitrage was to move to Florida. It's nice down there. There's a lot of water, good schools, and you can live for about 40% of what it would cost you in New York. And then ultimately, every lifestyle arbitrage, like an arbitrage in the commodities or the financial markets, gets starched out because the word gets out and people move down there. So the question is, what are the lifestyle, the cities that offer a lifestyle arbitrage now? And I've identified three. You want to keep saying the word arbitrage over and over again, but go ahead. Keep going. Arbitrage. I get it. It's making you hot with my financial sex talk. It's a sexual act. What would arbitrage be? There you go. That's it. That's like, I don't know. That's like basically trading up from Scott to any other man. Anyway, so the three cities I would offer up as being lifestyle arbitrages that I think are going to attract a lot of human capital are, first, we just mentioned Madrid.

Tons of people from Latin America. People with money are moving from Latin America where they see it as more unstable business environment and political situation in Madrid. And by the way, Madrid, I don't know if you've been there recently. Beautiful. I know it is. I've been there. It's beautiful. Food's great.

But I taught at Instituto Impresa in 2006, and it was okay. It was kind of a gritty, cool city. In the last 18 years, that place has gotten a massive phase lift. Yeah, food, lots of things. Oh, everything. So that's my first lifestyle arbitrage. The second is Athens. I think that Greece has actually done pretty well, and they're building all sorts of new

resorts and new high-rise condos and good life, great weather, Mediterranean diet, Blue Zone, all that stuff. And then the third, I think, is Mexico City, which offers fantastic culture, food. Are we thinking of moving, Scott? Is this another Scott moves to another international place? Well, it was so funny. I was so taken with Madrid. I think you are. I thought, what if I were to spend two or three more years and have my youngest go to high school at the American School in Madrid?

But I thought, if my oldest goes to college in the U.S., I don't want to be that far from him. But I think Mexico City is basically kind of the hottest cultural hub now for 40% of the cost of similar cultural hubs. And I think it's going to see a hue and flow of capital. What are your thoughts on cities? I'm going to live here for the rest of my life. You're like, Calorama. Calorama. No, I'm not Calorama. I'm in Cathedral Heights, my friend, which I like to call Cathedral Whites. You know, my mom moved us around a lot. We moved around, not like we're an army family, but a lot of houses and she was sort of restless. And I like

staying, both my brothers and I stay where we are. And my brother, my little brother right now is building like an apocalypse house, essentially, like fully off the grid. Jeff's lived in his house forever where he's been living. And me too. I've had my San Francisco house since the 90s. So I'm not a mover. I'm not a traveler. And now I'll be too old. Yeah, but you're bi-coastal. You live in D.C. and kind of San Francisco, right? Well, I go there, but not everybody. Like, we're there for Christmas and things like that. But I have to say, by the time I was thinking, I was sitting there, sitting at the elevator this morning and taking Clara to school. She takes her scooter and I chase her, like huffing and puffing to the school, which is walkable, very easily walkable. And I

thought, I'm going to be like 80 when she goes to college. That's when I get like free. You didn't do the math when she was born? I didn't. Not just her, but Saul is even, and then they're both born at the, so they won't really go to college for, oh my God, a long time. Let's think, Saul turned three. Like, it'll be a long frigging time. No, Kara, even worse. 16 years. three, like it'll be a long frigging time. No, Kara, even worse. By the way, it's super easy to teach your 16-year-old daughter

how to drive when you're 76. It's a really fun experience. Yeah, okay. I'm going to be old as fuck, so I'm not going to have that. Like, I think I'll go to Madrid and dance, you know. I will literally be like wheeled around Madrid. That's what's going to happen to Kara Swisher. I'm not going to get that.

You're going to be 76 ined around Madrid. That's what's going to happen in Kariswish. I'm not going to get that. You're going to be 76 in 14 years anyways. Why not be 76 in a place with great wine and beautiful architecture? I would agree. I was just thinking the other day, the penny fucking dropped that I'm going to be old is all shit when I get to be a place where I can travel to places like you're talking about

easily. Anyway, that's enough of our travels. I'm staying put right here in Washington, D.C., and you are traveling globetrotting. Lucky you. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Nike's CEO shakeup. I know John Donahue pretty well, but you've talked about it, so I want to get to it. Kamala Harris's attempt to get another Donald Trump debate on the calendar. Good luck. Plus, our friends at Pivot are The New York Times reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mack. I love this new book, Character Limit, How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. It's getting a lot of attention. Of course, Elon's helping them out by staying in the news because he's a relentless drama queen. He's having bits of fits because it looks like Kamala Harris is doing rather well. But we'll see. We'll see. He's pouring money and agony into the campaign for Trump. Anyway, first things, a unit of a dormant nuclear power plant

at Three Mile Island will likely reopen to power the data centers for Microsoft's AI. This is interesting. I just interviewed the head of Microsoft's AI. Separate unit of the plant was shut down in 1979 after a nuclear disaster, although it wasn't quite as disastrous. It is disastrous. It was bad, but nonetheless, nuclear got a really bad reputation after that. Microsoft and Constellation Energy, which runs Three Mile Island, have signed a 20-year agreement which will add

$16 billion to the Pennsylvania's GDP. It's a big deal. If approved by regulators, the plant will reopen in 2028. Of course, there's a lot of controversy around nuclear, and you and I have been much more of a supporter of it. Is this a win? Do you think it's going to be approved? I think the forces that were against nuclear are much less powerful going forward. It's the worst. Nuclear is the worst managed brand. I mean, regenerative energy. I think Josh Wolf had, he was saying he started to call it something else. It's one of the worst managed brands since the China syndrome, Chernobyl. And my favorite sort of summary of nuclear is more people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in a nuclear power plant in the United States. And it's true. This is, in addition to the fears about a quote-unquote China syndrome, it's also been a bit of a financial disaster on many levels. And that is, I was in my first job, I was in fixed income at Morgan Stanley, and we were selling these Washington public power supply bonds. referring to them as whoops, because this huge set of nuclear reactors sponsored by Washington Power

never got built because they kept going billions and billions of dollars over budget. And finally, voters said, screw it, just leave them there. And we've had it. Bill Gates, who distinct to what you think of him personally, I think is one of the bigger brains on the planet, is all in on nuclear. And it strikes me that it just, and these environmentalists, I think, got it wrong and started encouraging Germany to unplug their power plants. There's a lot of activity in nuclear energy right now. Super hot right now. Small nuclear devices, things like that.

It would have the power once restored, the power, get the 700,000 homes. The U.S. currently has 93 operational reactors across 28 states, which are responsible, get this, I didn't know this, about 19% of U.S. total energy production. That's pretty significant. If the combined emissions of the big five tech firms, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta were considered as a country in 2022, they would rank as the 33 greatest emitting nations behind or nation just behind the Philippines. And here's the thing, they know they're about to go way up in the rankings in terms of the power consumption that they're going to inspire with AI that takes somewhere between 10 and 15 times the energy per query of a Google query. This is a big issue.

Yeah, there's a real renewed interest in nuclear power and lots of investment. This is something, oddly enough, I talked about with Bill Gates two years ago. Like he was like, this is, this is, he said a similar thing, you know, bad branding here and it's much safer and it's this and that and compared to others.

And, you know, he's like, renewables aren't going to make it for us. You know, it's not going to happen. And especially around climate change, which was his issue, but it's a huge symbol, right? If it could be, you know, there's a good quote, the symbolism is enormous, said Joseph Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation, Asia's largest nuclear operator. This was the site of the industry's greatest failure. It could now be a place of its rebirth. But all these were closed. And it'll be interesting to see the reaction from

not just young people about anti-nuke people, because that was such a strong thing. You know, the things look scary too, right? I know it sounds crazy, but they have such a, but those movies, you know, those two movies, when one was Cher also, just did a number on the imagery of it. When it was, you know, a lot, even including the one in Japan, the number of deaths are very low, right? And the biggest mess was the one in Chernobyl, but that was largely because of the way Russians handle it

because they're so incompetent. But they use nuclear quite a bit, right? But there's a bunch that they may bring back online. And some are too decommissioned. But there's one in Michigan, the Palisades plant. There's one in Iowa. I'm really interested in this. Fusion is another thing that's important. Anyway, we'll see what goes on here. But this this is a big it's a big moment. It really is. We'll see where it goes. Speaking of a big moment, that's really we talked've talked about this before. Intel has some big decisions to make. Chip giant Qualcomm has reportedly approached

Intel about a takeover. Polymer Global Management has offered Intel a capital injection of $5 billion. It's had a very rough year, a stock being down 53% for the year. I can't believe this is a takeover target, like Intel inside. It's just, you talked about the loser's basket you were thinking of making. And will a Qualcomm deal have any hope of getting past antitrust regulation? I mean, I just can't believe this is, I mean, I haven't really been paying attention, but boy, what a shift, right? It's funny. It'll be one of my questions. I don't know if she'll comment on it. I have Lena Kahn coming on our PropGpod. My sense is they should, like Intel's struggling. And I think if you want to talk about monopoly power, talk about NVIDIA. And so AMD and or Qualcomm acquiring Intel, they need to bulk up. And Intel

needs new IP, possibly new management. I mean, they just need to do something here. They have performed really poorly. And you said some nice things about the CEO. I don't know him as- Yeah, Pat Gelsinger, yeah. So, look, I don't know if it'll survive scrutiny. I think it should. Well, someone called it logically unlikely, but this investment by Apollo, which is, you know, these are private investors that come and look at these things. But most people don't think that that will happen, that Qualcomm will get it. But what do you think of the investors coming in and doing this and treating it like essentially just, you know, you call them a loser basket, but distressed properties, right?

Oh, this is a great investment. Intel has so much IP, such outstanding human capital kind of up and down the stack. but distressed properties, right? Correct? stock has gotten just, I mean, it is, I think this is a classic Apollo play. And that is in five years, their stock, Intel stock is off 56%. If you look at the long-term, it's trading at basically, it's trading at 22 bucks a share. And this is, this used to be the icon of technology. The icon. And Andy Grove. I mean, I remember I spent time with Andy Grove. Just to watch this, like you look at a company like Microsoft that looked like it was on the ropes and then sort of reasserted itself in such a magnificent way. And then this one missing every turn, right?

And it was so dominant. It was crazy. People were worried about its monopoly status at one you know and the you know they had a then they had a bunch of screw-ups all at once anyway it's we'll see what so you think apollo's the move or one of these look i think bulking uh i mean if i were apollo okay so if i'm a shareholder and i'm apollo i want to come in and try and enact my strategy as a go-along strategy and if it doesn't work i pull the ripcord and sell and get my money back

i see it almost as a free option so as an investor if i'm apollo i don't want them to do this deal because i know the deal is out there i come in and see if i can go without it alone and capture the upside and if i don't i call qualcomm, hey, you're still interested in doing a deal. So it's sort of what I call, when I invested in, do you remember Neva, the subscription-based search engine? Oh, yeah, of course. Sridhar Ramaswamy.

I met Sridhar, and he was one of the seminal players that built Google Search. Sridhar, I'm sorry, my column's Sridhar. Anyways, and I said, I'm going to invest in this because while I don't think subscription search or any, any player trying to go up against Google has much of a likelihood of survival. I think I'll get my money back because I think you, even if this company fails, I think someone will pay a lot of money for this company just to get you and your management team. And what do you know? Subscription search didn't work.

People weren't willing to put out their credit card for what was seen as just a reasonable facsimile of Google. And so it wasn't working. And then Snowflake came in and gave all the investors back. And I remember writing a note to Sridhar and saying, this is like the best venture investment anyone could hope for because it was, I've got a lottery ticket. And then when my numbers didn't come up, I gave it back to the guy and I got my buck back. So if I'm Apollo, I'd love to invest pre-acquisition and see and give it a whirl. Yeah, give it a whirl. Yeah. All right. And the other interesting thing, which I was fascinated with, Amazon will require corporate employees to be in the office five days a week. The company previously allowed two remote days a week. Employees are not thrilled with the news,

with many expressing their discontent on Slack and marking themselves open to work on LinkedIn. The shift was announced in a memo from CEO Andy Jassy, where he also told staff the company would be simplifying corporate structure to have fewer managers. I think this is a baller move on his part. You know, Amazon's an analog and digital company, and I think he's kind of right about corporate culture in this regard. And I think he's kind of right about corporate culture in this regard. And being remote. And I love remote, as you know, but I feel the place of work. And I think that Amazon has never been known as a friendly, soft, gentle place to work. They're about shareholder value and the consumer. And so them saying that we want to take advantage of the culture and innovation, electricity, and serendipity that takes place in person, I get it. Some people would also argue

that it's basically their attempt to lay off a certain number of employees quietly because a lot of people will resign. But I think that they get to do this. What's interesting is that remote work has stuck in the U.S., whereas the majority of Europe and Asian nations are back to work, which has just absolutely destroyed the commercial real estate sector in the U.S. And what do you know, a lot of young employees who are, I don't want to call them entitled, but the ultimate arbitrage in the last couple of centuries in a modern economy has been, first and foremost, fossil fuels. You can build shit faster and cheaper with fossil fuels than anything. That's been the ultimate arbitrage. The second ultimate arbitrage is to find young, talented, ambitious people who you can pay

$100,000 to who are 80% as good as the 40-year-old dude making $400,000. If you can attract young, talented people on a regular basis, as big tech does, you can attract the youngest and most talented people who don't have dogs, don't have kids, are willing to work around the clock for less money than the 40-year-old. That's the ultimate economic arbitrage. We don't like to say that out loud, but the firms that can draw those people are the ones that win. And young people, generally speaking, young ambitious people, what I found at my firm, despite the reports that they all want to walk their dog in Brooklyn Park, really young ambitious people actually like the

office. Now, having said that, who this hurts, Kara, who this really hurts is caregivers, specifically moms. And I'd like to see a new classification of worker called the care worker that says, all right, you're taking care of parents, you're taking care of kids, you're taking care of yourself. You don't make enough money to live in downtown Seattle. in downtown Seattle. We're going to give you a different classification and we're going to invest in enabling two, three days a week at home. Because there are some people who just can't be in the office, but want to maintain some semblance of a career. Your thoughts?

Well, I just, like I said, I think you've got to, you have to absolutely think about where the workforce is, right? And in Seattle, you know, with people being laid off, there's not as many choices. Amazon's a big, important choice. And so if you're in Silicon Valley, it might be a different thing. But there's lots of companies in Seattle, but it is really

Microsoft, Amazon, right? And some of the aerospace giants. But I would think that this is how he wants to run his company. This is how he wants to run his company. This is how he wants to run his company. I don't think he'll lose talent for it. I think people will just opt in. And I do, as you have talked about, think it's important, even though I never go to the office to be in the office and create a company culture. I think he'll lose moms. There was a survey that two-thirds of C-suite leaders- What if he provides really great childcare? Like, that's the kind of thing he's got to add to it. Oh, okay. Is he?

I don't know. That's what I would do if I were him. If I was doing this, I'd say, we're going to have world fucking class this. That's what- You have to go along with that. And I think if there's anything to do, if you want to do something like this, you have to have a, okay, we've learned some things during the pandemic about women in the workplace, and not just women, people with children in the workplace.

And we've learned a lot about commuting. And so here's what we're going to do to help you. And so I think if he did that, kind of interesting. It's an interesting time to sort of glom all kinds of learnings because we've got a ton of learnings. Anyway, we'll see. Andy, interesting move. Okay, let's get to our first big story. Nike stock is surging following the news late last week that CEO John Donahoe is stepping down.

Donahoe's four-year tenure was a rocky one, with Nike losing market share, breaking off relations with key retailers, and according to some critics, losing its cool factor. Elliot Hill, a Nike veteran, is coming out of retirement, who you apparently know, Scott Galloway, to be the new CEO. You had talked about Nike's woes back in July. You predicted that Donahoe had 12 months to figure it out or he'd be removed. That's a lot sooner. Nike shares rose 8% in after-hours trading on Thursday following the news. You also predicted that an activist and veteran was going to come in and make some moves. following the news. He also predicted that an activist in Bethlehem was going to come in and make some moves. Bill Ackman's Pershing Square purchased 3 million shares of Nike back in the second quarter, according to recent filings. What do you think? Let me hear your thoughts on him. Elliot Hill, he's a career Nike man, started as an intern. Nike was one of my biggest clients at L2, and I love this company. I mean, it's super smart people.

I love the unapologetic brand positioning of you didn't win silver, you lost gold. I think Nike is intrinsic to an American ideal of individual performance and running so hard, you throw up. I just love the brand. They've done an amazing job. Now, bringing in a guy who didn't have a background in merchandising, didn't have a background in apparel, didn't have a background in sports, who was basically a consultant, very impressive guy, and then ran a tech platform was a decision for them to go all in on tech. And I want to be clear, I would have made the same decision. And I basically advocated when I was working with Nike for them to go more direct to consumer. What they weren't expecting, and I wouldn't have predicted, and it's easy to Monday morning

quarterback, so let me say I would have gotten this wrong, is that retail came surging back much faster post-pandemic than people had expected. And their enormous bet on direct-to-consumer at the cost of managing and supporting their third-party retail backfired on them. In addition, we talked about this, the China chill has affected, infected a lot of these companies, including Nike. And then what people will say that he has to take responsibility for is their product development hasn't been nearly as innovative as Adidas with their vintage line or Hoka or responded to Hoka or on running that they've basically been out merchandised. This guy, I didn't spend a lot of time with him, but he's hugely respected. And it just feels like the right

move from a morale standpoint. He's a product guy. He just, he kind of, he's out of central casting. He's one of these guys when I was in meeting with him, he was just sort of, was a great listener. And then when he spoke, everybody sort of waited to hear what this guy would say. So I think it's great they brought back somebody from Nike and Nike alumni. I thought it might be this woman named Heidi O'Neill

at Nike, because she's a super impressive woman. But the Nike brand and the relationships they have and the resonance they have and the distribution, I mean, you just do not want to bet against this company. I think it's actually a really good buy right now. Right. Interesting. You had talked about that. And, you know, Phil Knight is the player here. Like, he liked John. I think he was, that's what I understand. Anyway, I've known him over the years, but, you know, I think he had an audience of one, which was Phil Knight, which was keeping him in power. But at some point, you have to, you know, there's a lot more

competition in the space. There's a lot more innovation in the space. And, you know, just like Intel, it's like, wow, this company has sort of lost a step. And it's certainly still, I think, the most important brand in sports. It just is, right? It's not, you know, Intel's got a lot of competition. Nike does too. Like all the people who bought Nikes are now wearing Hoka's, right? Because their back hurts. Or there's a bunch of other brands that younger people.

On stock is like, I mean, On has been a phenomenon. That's the one Zendaya is advertising with. There's a lot of people moving into the space, but to unseat Nike, it's a mistake on Nike's part, right? Not to continue to be cool. Who could they sign that would make them super cool, would you say? I think it all kind of reverse engineers to a 17-year-old who's spending more time on TikTok than watching broadcast television. Nike's weapon, their sword, if you will, for fighting their wars was broadcast. They were the best broadcast advertiser in history. But now you have the majority of the customer is now learning about brands from more long-tail sources,

influencers, Instagram, and sport. They're still really strong in sport. But I think their product just got a little bit stale. I think this is more a product story and maybe supply chain around being faster to market with new product ideas and maybe reinvesting and showing some more love for their retail partners. I don't think it's an endorsement. They wandered around with the watch stuff. Remember the exercise watch? Oh, the fuel band? Yeah. They wandered around over in digital for a while, which makes sense, but they wandered a little too bad. They didn't do a good job. I'm just saying, I think they wandered in areas that

weren't really big and made a big deal of them. And the stores, they, you know, they're huge stores, but they've closed a bunch of them, actually. They have a big one in San Francisco, a couple big ones in New York. But they closed the D.C. one here, for example. But the thing is, you know what I'm wearing right now? Like, at least four pieces of Nike right now. Shoes, pants. Well, that's the problem with the brand, Kara. I mean, no offense, but when 62-year-old podcasters were in Nike, that means it's all over.

I know, but Alex liked it for a while, but now he still loves Nike, I have to say. He was a Nike man, and he still is. My kids, I have two teenage boys who are basically their market, and one wears New Balance, and the other wears Nike and Adidas, and it used to be just all Nike all the time. And New Balance has made a comeback, which no one was predicting. But this is a, it's almost like a bit of a fashion market, if you will. Yeah, absolutely. But you know what? I am cool, Scott. So I don't know what you understand that.

That's what you focused on, right? I'm super fucking cool. That's what you focused on. I do like Nike clothes. They were better. But although I just bought Uniqlo some joggers that were fantastic in shirts, they were fantastic. Uniqlo makes really great stuff. I'm wearing Uniqlo underwear right now, just in case you're interested. Wow. And there goes our Uniqlo sponsorship. break. Can we come back? Donald Trump's bizarre comments on abortion, and they are bizarre.

And we'll get to the inside story of Elon's Twitter takeover from our friends at Pivot, Kate Conger and Ryan Mack. content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world.

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Okay, Scott, we're back. Vice President Kamala Harris has a five-point lead over former President Donald Trump in the latest NBC News poll. When it comes to battleground states, Trump seems to be ahead in Arizona and leading in Georgia and North Carolina, according to New York Times' Santa poll released today. These things are the most flip-floppy polls. I've got to say, the New York Times one shifts every hour. Meanwhile, Trump says women will no longer be thinking about abortion if he's elected in November. Instead, they will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. That sounds like literally like calling Margaret Atwood a handmaid's tale.

He pushed that messaging at a rally in a lengthy post on Truth Social, a demented one, let me just say. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer spoke for many people in a CNN interview Sunday, calling Trump deranged after these comments. They were deranged, actually, I would agree. But again, it's not another Tuesday. They're particularly deranged, including continuing to double down on pet eating in Ohio. He's focusing on reproductive rights. He shouldn't be focusing on reproductive rights because nobody trusts him. A lot of chaos, the eating pets, the GOP candidate for governor in North Carolina who called himself a black Nazi. I was going to say I did not see that coming, but I did not see that coming. It doesn't seem to stick. And we'll get to the debate in a second, but comments on these polls and this craziness that's going on. So the polls are within the margin of error. And I think most

media has just acknowledged it's a toss up at this point. within the margin of error. And I think most media has just acknowledged it's a toss-up at this point. They just don't know. And I think it's more about, I mean, first off, as a general rule, you're never supposed to insult voters. For me, anyone who says they're an undecided voter, it's like saying, I have my head up my ass.

I mean, what is it you're going to figure out? I think that too. You're undecided? What, do you drink gasoline in the morning well they want to know more about her they know about him they know about him we want to know i don't get that argument either that okay what do you know about him he supposedly was for abortion before he was against it he was going to ban tiktok now he's not like and people say they don't understand vice president i think it's a legitimate criticism that someone who is

coronated didn't compete should show she can stand on her own two feet and do some more vigorous interviews. And if I were on her team, I'd say we need two or three policies, whether it's reducing the deficit or something around economic growth. We need some two or three policies people can hold on to right now. But generally speaking, this whole argument, I don't know if you saw our friend Stephanie Ruhl and Bill Maher. I thought she was fantastic. I thought she was fantastic. Kudos. And Brett Stevens was saying- What do you need to know, Brett? What do you need to know, Brett? It's like straining.

She said, look, perfect's not on the menu here. And what do you need to know? And she's right. We know about him. We know about her. And the unknowns around Vice President Harris, it's a little bit unfair. You basically, if you do any research, can see that she's kind of center left. You have a decent idea how she's going to respond to things based on the Biden-Harris administration. I mean, she had years as a senator, years as an AG. She's tougher on crime than the far left would like. She's probably more. I mean, you have a better idea because the way you know someone is they're consistent and predictable. You don't know what he's going to do. I mean, we kind of know that he's comfortable with sort of a series nine of The Handmaid's Tale. We know that. I mean, you just who the fuck is undecided at this point? Who are they? Here's here's you know, I'm focusing you just, who the fuck is undecided at this point? I know, I know. Like, who are they?

Here's, you know what I'm focusing in on? It's interesting. Donations. She's got four times the donations. I don't mean just money collecting. If you go give a donation, you mean it, right? So why is he not raising enough money from small donors? Are they tapped out?

Are they tired? Yeah, but there was a lot of pent-up demand from Democrats who were just- Yes, but it's still ongoing. It's still going. It's by like a lot. And it's not rich people. All his money is coming from rich people. It's just interesting. I think they're like, well, I'm not sure I like you. So be nicer to me. I think they're so full of shit. Anyone who's an undecided voter, claims to be an undecided voter, is going to go in and vote for Trump because they clearly got their head up their ass already. Jesus Christ, undecided voter. Anyways, now at this point, I think everyone's decided from this point forward, and this is where the money kicks in, it's about

turning out the vote. And now they have the money to hire every attractive 18 to 60-year-old to go to homes and say, are you ready? I mean, this is what I did for Hillary. Are you registered to vote? Do you know where your polling place is? Do you need a ride to the polls? Are you going out? Maybe you shouldn't. I'm thinking- You should start calling them idiots. Well, you're undecided. You've got your head up your ass. Get to the poles. You're undecided. So I think what you're telling me is you're a village idiot. Is that what you're saying? Hi, enjoy the rest of your day. Would you like a hair sticker?

That was interesting. Going five miles inland from my privileged life in Florida, that was a dose of the real life and getting welcomed at the door by a pit bull. By the way, the friendliest, nicest dogs in the world. Very scary, though. Very scary. You never know what they're going to do. You feel like you never know. They actually are very nice, most of them.

It's the people who own them that are the problem, usually. I told you this story. I went to a neighborhood that you would generously call lower or middle class, lower middle class. And it was a mixed neighborhood. It was white and black. And when I went into black households and they'd invite me in, super nice. Oh yeah, we're for Hillary.

And I'm like, all right, do you know where your voting location is? And they'd say, oh no, I don't know where it is. And they'd take them and I'd walk out and she's going to lose. They're not excited about her. They haven't figured out where they're supposed to vote. They like the idea of her in office, but they're not passionate about it. And then when I'd, when I, lower middle class, white neighborhood, when I'd bang on the door and a white person would answer, and I'm playing identity politics here, but it panned out. I'd say, hi, I'm with

Harris. Some of these people slammed the door in my face. I mean, literally slammed the door in my face. Clinton. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm here for Clinton. Excuse me. Thank you for that. I'm here supporting, you know, canvassing for Hillary Clinton. Do you need any... I had, in the course of a nine-hour day, three people, all three Caucasians, slammed, not even say thank you, I'm not interested. no, I don't like Secretary Clinton, but slam the door in my face. And I thought, you know what? They did a number on her. It's upsetting,

but you know what? They got passion. They got passion. I'm like, that person's going to vote. That person's going to vote. They did a number on our girl over the years, and she didn't help many times, but still. Meanwhile, Trump says, speaking of women, I mean, this abortion thing is deranged. He's going to completely sign a national abortion restriction bill. And I think it's going to matter in voting. He also doesn't want to do

a debate. He shouldn't. He sucked at it. He said it's too late for a rematch, though apparently it's not too late for Senator J.D. Vance. But we don't know where she stands. She's willing to do a debate, but we don't know where she stands. Know where she stands. Well, the J.D. Vance one with Tim Walz is going to be on October 1st. J.D. Vance says he's open. He never stops talking. Boy, he shows up at the opening of a door, J.D. Vance. Have you noticed how he's totally doing this for himself in case Trump loses? What do you think about Trump doing a second debate? Well, I'd like to see it. And I think it should put to rest any criticism that she's not for himself in case Trump loses. What do you think about Trump doing a second debate? Well, I'd like to see it. And I think it should put to rest any criticism that she's not

facing the music. The most interesting interview she could do is in front of moderators with him real time. I mean, that's... So I just think those criticisms fall kind of flat when she's willing to do a second debate. Strategically for him, it's probably a smart move because I just don't think he's, I think he got so destroyed. I think he's, I think he can't help it. He watches it. He got de-penised by her. Yeah. He got a little tinier penis, even though he has a mushroom penis. I thought you were saying double penetrated.

I'm like, was it a three-way debate? No, no, no. By the way, are you going to watch the vice president's debate? Pete Buttigieg is playing J.D. Vance. I interviewed him this week. He's been playing J.D. Vance for Tim Walz's debate prep. Is that what gay people do? They dress up as, oh, what you mean in a debate prep?

Yeah, never mind. Yes, that's what we do. Yes. What politician do you dress up as when it's sexy time at home? I'm Ross Perot. What do you wear for Halloween this year? And let me just change the subject. It'll be a good debate.

And Tim Walls will kick J.D. Vance's ass because J.D. Vance is a twit. Back to Halloween. Let's keep on the important stuff. What's your costume? I don't dress up. I go as a dress fisher. Oh, it's the best. This year, I'm going as Richard Simmons.

I got short shorts, athletic shorts. Oh, you'll like that. You can show off your ass. A headband. Yeah. By the way, by the way, I am 6'3", 87 kilos. Tom Selleck, when he started Magnum PI, was 6'3", 87 kilos. And we look much different in shorts,

Cara. I don't understand what's going on here. I don't understand what's going on. Anyway, in any case, I'm not dressing as anything. You're going to be Richard Simmons. And the debate will be fine. The vice president will debate. Poor Cara has to bring it back somehow. Bring it back. Anyway, we've got things to get to. Let's bring in our friends of Pivot. Kate Conger and Ryan Mack are technology reporters for The New York Times. They've written the new book, Character Limit, How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter.

Welcome, Kate and Ryan. Thank you so much. Thank you. So, so there's so much going on. What a perfect timing, although any time would be perfect because Elon's always the drama queen that he is these days. So any time. But in the last few days, he's been has threatened with SEC sanctions. He's backed down on Brazil to get X unbanned. He said he'll sue the FAA. He's been sued by a party game company, Cards Against Humanity. I could go on. He had a

meltdown last night about Kamala Harris saying that we're not going to get to Mars and humanity is doomed. But other than that, just another Tuesday. So let's get each of your takes on the latest chaos, because it seems like he's trying to compete with Donald Trump for attention. Both of them are sad, pathetic attention sponges. But tell me what you think. Yeah, you know, Elon goes through these phases of tweeting really outrageous things and then kind of ratcheting it back when he gets criticized. And we saw him the other day post about, you know, asking why hasn't anyone tried to assassinate Kamala Harris and got criticized for that, ratcheted back a little bit, and now has just been doubling down

and posting a lot of really extreme stuff in the last couple of days. So, you know, we've seen him do this over and over again in the reporting in the book where he kind of has these intense cycles of posting. Caused by? I think it could be any number of things. He, I think when he's cornered or feels like someone's confronted him, he tends to double down and to really push back and start to pick fights. And I think that that's kind of what we're seeing here. You know, he's gotten pushed back over that one post. And so he's coming back even stronger and posting more stuff. I used to have a theory that, you know, if you stayed up till 2am on the West Coast, you know, you'd get to see some of his tweets and he'd go, you know, kind of mask off and just start going nuts a little

bit. And I feel like that's all the time now. Like he just doesn't stop. He's tweeting more than 75 times a day. And, you know, one of those tweets is going to end up being the news cycle for the next day. It's kind of inevitable at this point. And he is, you know, the most powerful person and one of the most powerful people in the world. He's the richest person in the world. He's going to generate new cycles and he knows that and I think he's like using that to his advantage. Okay, let's talk about that advantage because the book goes into depth sometimes minute by minute

into Elon's takeover of Twitter. What is the thing, Ryan, first that you found particularly surprising when the purchase of Twitter finally went through. For example, Elon's reaction was, fuck Zuck. He just attacked him today again. You also reveal how Walter Isaacson occasionally influenced Elon's thinking, which I'm not surprised by. He and I had a tussle over his reporting on that book. But talk, each of you, first you, Ryan, and then Kate.

I just think the lack of planning. Like. This is the richest man in the world. He has so many people at his disposal. And he came into Twitter with a sort of hubris that he was the best place person to run this company because he had electrified cars or he had, you know, put rockets into space, he knew how to operate a social media company. How hard could it be? And that lack of planning has doomed him to this day. You know, he didn't have an understanding of advertising. He thought Twitter blew the idea to sell verification badges would be such a spectacular hit. It would create hundreds of millions and billions of dollars in revenue and replace advertising.

And that lack of planning is just stunning to me. What about you, Kate? I think the sheer chaos of those first couple of weeks surprised me, even though all that summer long we were really expecting the deal to go sideways, for the takeover to be extremely chaotic. the deal to go sideways, for the takeover to be extremely chaotic. Even knowing all of that, the way that it went and some of the decisions that he was making in those early days were surprising to me. One of his first things coming in was insisting on reinstating the Babylon Bee. And you think of all the priorities he might have in taking over a company, and that was at the top of his list. I think the layoffs were also— That's why he did it.

Right. But I think the layoffs were also incredibly shocking. I mean, any M&A like this, you're going to have cuts afterwards. But the scope and the just kind of inhumane way that those things were handled was pretty surprising to me. Nice to meet you both. So just to steel mount this, it's impossible not to say this was a terrible deal financially. This is by almost any metric, the worst buyout in history, right? I can't think of a company that's gone from 5 billion run rate to 2 billion,

60, 70% of the $44 billion value here has been wiped out according to various financial analysts. value here has been wiped out according to various financial analysts. But I'll put forward a thesis and you respond. It's been a huge win for him. And that is he ended up having to come up with more money than he wanted. I think he had to come up with about $27 billion, which is approximately at this point, somewhere between 12 and 15% of his net worth. And in exchange, he's in the news constantly. He has more influence than he's ever had. He's now part of the geopolitical conversation around everything, which he seems to enjoy. So if you're an individual with this kind of money and you're a megalomaniac and you want to have an input on everything and more influence globally on every issue, whether it's Taylor Swift or the Russia-Ukraine war. Isn't this, in fact, despite the fact that he has lost some money

and a lot of his friends have lost money, so far a win for him? I think so, yeah. I mean, he said from the outset he didn't care about the finances of this deal. And he was really purely concerned about buying Twitter as an ideological maneuver. And I think that that's been hugely successful for him. He's been able to shift the platform pretty dramatically to the right, bring back a lot of right-wing accounts that were banned under the former leadership, and really, like you said, insert himself into not just the U.S. political conversation, but the global political conversation. And I think he's very

satisfied with all of that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think he gets a lot of personal satisfaction. You know, the subtitle of our book is How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. You know, we meant it to be provocative. I think from, you know, just a name perspective, it's no longer Twitter. We call it Twitter, but it's X now, you know. And from a financial perspective, it's kind of undoubtable. It's like one of us buying a car and then, you know, joyriding it and crashing it, but still getting a lot of like fun out of it. And I think that is probably the apt analogy here. I also think that the value of X is kind of degrading globally, especially if you're, you know, getting a band in certain markets or being seen as a censor for authoritarians or leaders that like cracking

down on speech. I think of something like Narendra Modi or Erdogan in Turkey. You know, he is not upholding free speech in those markets. He is complying with the government. You know, the biggest play he's making right now is towards Donald Trump. He's slated to be running this government efficiency commission if Trump wins the election, which is so full of conflicts of interest. They don't care. This is a big win for him if that happens. As I said, he's already said if Harris wins, this would destroy the Mars program and doom humanity. I've had him say things like that to me all the time about humanity being doomed if Tesla doesn't survive and humanity being doomed if he's not around.

He's, you know, he's clearly narcissistic on a level other people are not. But if Trump, talk about if Trump wins and if Trump loses, because if he loses, I suspect he's in a world of hurt around Tesla, around all his businesses. And what does he do if that's the case? So first, maybe, Kate, you take on if he wins, if Trump wins, and Ryan, if he loses. Yeah, I think, you know, obviously, Elon's thrown all his weight behind the Trump campaign at this point. Financially, too. Financially, ideologically, he's a really strong supporter. And he really views Trump as essential to the X platform. He thinks that Trump's presence there will bring a lot of eyeballs and influence back

to the platform. So I think if Trump wins, it's a huge win for Musk. He gets to say, you know, I made the right bet. I proved you all wrong. And it'll grow the influence of the platform. You also talk about the Government Efficiency Commission, which I think is so funny. But when they've been talking about this, there's a scene in the book that it reminds me of where Musk calls this big cost-cutting meeting over a weekend and makes everyone dial in

and just starts going through the budget line by line in a spreadsheet and making everyone account for every dollar that they're spending. And I think that is his ambition for the government. I think he would love to walk into the Office of Management and Budget and say, show me your most complicated spreadsheet, right? So, you know, I think it'll get him a lot of influence and he'll be very satisfied with that result if Trump does win. What about Ryan if he loses? If he loses, I don't think it's that big of a deal for him, if that's weird to say. I think his companies are so big and so powerful. You know, Tesla is still the leader in EVs.

It's only growing bigger in China. And you think of something like SpaceX, which has a virtual monopoly on getting things into space. There is no Blue Origin out there. You know, United Launch Alliance is probably going to go down the tubes. Like, he knows that. And I think that plays into his thinking here as he's become more political. You know, in 2018 or, you know, 2016 in that election, even 2020, he wasn't overtly political. But, you know, he's realized that I've become so powerful. I can say whatever I want. I can do whatever I want. It's not going to impact my business. In fact, I can threaten to sue the government. And, you know, what is it to me? They're still going to rely on me. Who are the winners here? Who do you think has picked up the slack in terms of what platforms have benefited most from Twitter's struggles?

You know, obviously, Facebook comes to mind with threads, their competitor. You know, there's also all these other alternative platforms like Blue Sky, Mastodon, that have been able to pick up a lot of users from this. Blue Sky in particular saw a huge spike after X was banned in Brazil. I don't think that that means any of them are replacing Twitter yet or taking the place in the market that Twitter holds. But his antics have been very advantageous to those companies. I mean, beyond platforms, I think there are specific users that have benefited a lot. I think of someone like Andrew Tate,

who gets pushed into my feed every day. Someone like Cat Turd 2, Miley Anopolis, like the folks that have been allowed back on the platform who are not only able to say what they want, but get algorithmic boosting from it. They are on everyone's

For You page now, they're front and center. And those are the voices that Elon wants to elevate. On that platform, but the number, I mean, we're all, I mean, maybe you guys are still on it, but Scott and I aren't, and I have 1.5 million followers. And I don't, I didn't, honestly, it didn't help me before. And then it got so toxic. It was, I don't find any difference in my life. You're not checking it at all these days, even just to lurk? No. Okay. Nope, nope, not at all. There's no reason. I get called a cunt. I don't feel like getting

called a cunt every day, Ryan, if you don't mind. Sure. I'll stop. Yeah, settle down, Ryan. Um, but speaking of that, you'll get into Elon's relationship with women as well as his kids. How do you think that's impacted his behavior? He's quite a toxic misogynist at this point. And his relations with his kids are heinous on every level. His one kid in particular, Vivian, who's fantastic and actually, interestingly enough, has his old sense of humor. I hate to, I'm sure she would disagree with me, but she's got the same very funny,

quirky, when Elon was funny and not quite as toxic. I think, you know, Twitter has never had a good relationship with women, right? This is the platform that launched and allowed Gamergate to thrive. There's been countless women who've been driven off the platform over the years by very severe harassment campaigns. So it's not like the relationship was ever going well. That being said, you know, Musk has really taken that into overdrive. He posted something just the other day that appeared to be a screenshot from 4chan advocating against women voting. He was talking about impregnating Taylor Swift after she endorsed Kamala Harris. So, you know, he's certainly brought that old level of toxicity towards women that we remember Twitter for back

to the platform and elevated that kind of thinking. You know, and it's no surprise when we saw Taylor Swift give an endorsement to Kamala that she talked about the threat of AI. And X is the platform where there were deep fake nudes of her going viral, and X seemed either uninterested in stopping it or powerless to do so. I would say they wouldn't want to encourage it. But go ahead. I think about his treatment of women, and we have a great anecdote in the book of how he took a name he had set aside for his daughter. He was going to have a daughter with Grimes, the singer. And they had set aside a name, this name Valkyrie. And he actually took it, that name, and used it on another daughter

he was having with Siobhan Zillis, one of his staff members, and didn't tell Grimes. And it was just such a soap opera-type crazy detail that I couldn't believe was true. And it's just, in some ways, he views women as almost in service of his needs or interchangeable in some ways. And it's just kind of, it's just sad. You know, I don't know how you go through life living your relationships like that. But it's just, it's just really sad. It's easy. You end up you end up with 12 kids and you live with none of them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's quite tragic, you know, and he talks about his origin story, being a victim

of verbal abuse from his father, being subject to these kinds of put downs and really aggressive behavior from him. And it seems like he has taken that and tried to turn it into his own superpower, where he turns around and uses that sort of belligerent behavior to motivate people at his companies and drive them. And he's used that same behavior on his kids. And it's a tragedy, I think, of his story that he's chosen to perpetuate that kind of behavior instead of taking a stop to it. It's so funny, there's children in the background of one of us. I know, know. Ryan lives next to a playground,

and I think we can hear the kids a little bit out there. Oh, all right. It's okay. Just so you know. I know. Yeah. Just make sure Elon's not out there bothering children. But go ahead.

So talk about that idea of where it's going to end up. And you write in the book that Elon once told friends he'd need five years to turn Twitter around. I don't think it's turning around. I just think he likes to have it like a toxic yacht that he gets to sail around the world and bash into harbors, essentially. Talk a little bit about where it goes as a business. Because someone was like, something's got to happen because the banks... I'm like, nothing has to happen. He's really rich. Nothing has to happen. Precisely nothing. He can take this going for quite a

while, correct? And then what does actually ultimately happen from your perspective? I think you're right that he can keep this afloat sort of indefinitely if he chooses to do so, although eventually his Tesla shareholders will become unhappy with him if he has to sell his shares there to keep the company afloat. But we haven't talked yet about XAI. And I think that that's sort of an interesting component in this where he's tanked so much value on the Twitter deal itself, but he's obtained an incredible corpus of training data for AI and has been able to raise new financing. He should make a nice lawsuit. But yes, you're right. He's shifting the value over

there because of the amount of data on Twitter, correct? And XAI, we didn't talk about this, it's valued at $28 billion now. So he's lost his value over at X or Twitter. XAI has just sprouted up overnight and it's added billions of dollars to his net worth. It's all funny money. We'll see if that actually is an actual valuation when it hits the market. But, you know, he's able to generate these things and spin them up. And he has plenty of believers. You know, these are the largest venture capitalists in the world. He has sovereign wealth funds. They're all pulling for him. And when you have that level of support, you're almost too big to fail. Everyone is in on it. He also has fans. He also remains fans.

He's creating this sort of godlike persona around himself. So the two of you know Twitter as well as anybody who doesn't work there right now. Recognizing no one has a crystal ball, what predictions would you have for the next 12 or 24 months for Twitter in terms of its business, its revenues, its influence? Generally, what's your predictions on Twitter over the next 24 months for Twitter in terms of its business, its revenues, its influence, generally, what's your predictions on Twitter over the next 24 months? I think there is really no replacement for it when it comes to breaking news moments. And I think it'll still kind of hold the lead on that. And, you in, in the event of a Trump presidency, I think that might be helpful for Elon's advertising business. You know, he's suing advertisers right now who aren't spending with him and kind of trying to force them back onto the platform. But in, in the event where he has a very close relationship with the White House, advertisers might feel like they are compelled to at least spend, you know, some courtesy money with X so that they stay in favor with the White House and with Elon. So it could

be quite beneficial to him. And I think, you know, we could see X really build on that. That being said, you know, I think the platform is going to continue its rightward shift and users are not happy with that. You know, people are leaving and going to all these other different platforms. And it's becoming increasingly toxic. So I think there's going to continue to be a drift of people who are getting away from the platform and not happy with the kind of content that they're seeing there. And the people that stay are really happy with it. You know, we've been tweeting out our book as promotion for it, kind of in a trolly kind of way. And we get all these responses from people being like,

well, you're promoting on an X. X must be better than ever. Twitter is better than ever. And, you know, there is a very insecure. There's a very there's a large subset of fans that believe in Elon still and love his companies. And I think that'll continue to exist in five, 10 years time. You know, I've used this analogy before, but you still have people using Yahoo Mail accounts to this day. And, you know, it doesn't mean Yahoo Mail. Yeah, it doesn't mean AOL or Yahoo Mail are growing. It's just that there is a, you know, stickiness to it. People like those features or those services, and they're going to continue staying with them. That doesn't make them good businesses either. And I think

that's where we'll see X or Twitter going. That's so true. I still have a subscription to Hustler and Kara shops at Uniqlo. So old brands. The underwear are very comfortable. But let me ask the last question. And Uniqlo stock crashes overnight.

Analysts befuddle. They don't understand we're talking about my underwear. So let's just move on. Please sponsor us, Uniqlo. Thank you, Uniqlo. So, I think I'd be remiss. Just one more question about Linda Iaccarino. Scott and I are just, we just laugh our asses off around her all the time. She just got a new advertising person, I mean, a marketing person. And, you know, there's a lot of, you know, advertising people that need jobs. That's my feeling. And they have a heavy nut to crack every month for themselves.

What's happening with Linda? Give us a little Linda update. You know, I think one of the things that's so fascinating about her is she's really thought of as this sort of captive of Elon. Like, she's just trapped in there and making a hostage video. But in my reporting on her, I think it's really incredible to realize how much similarity they have and how many viewpoints they share.

I don't really understand the thinking that people have that she's trapped by him in any way. I think she's quite happy with the platform. I think when she was at NBCUniversal previously, she felt like she kind of had to keep her politics under wraps a little bit because they might be alienating for advertisers. And she's really been able to lean into that now and feel comfortable speaking about it and supporting Trump in the way that she wants to. She enjoys the victimization, acting like a victim. That's one of her favorite. She was more conservative than people realize. The longest three minutes I ever spent was listening to that

once when she was at NBC. But what happens to her? She just stays there. She's a believer. She's a true believer. I keep telling people that. She's a true believer. And I think in talking to people who are close to her, she's also someone who doesn't want to admit when she's made a mistake. And I think we'll really ride this out to the bitter end and keep trying to prove herself in that situation. She's always wanted to be a CEO. She finally has that opportunity. And I really don't see her backing away from it. There's a scene in our book where Linda is at a sales meeting. And it's right after Media Matters pushes this report, you know, showing ads next to Nazi content on the platform.

And she's talking to her sales folks and like trying to band them together and keep up morale. And she says this one comment where it's like, you know, my daughter's wedding was over the weekend. people morale. And she says this one comment where it's like, you know, my daughter's wedding was over the weekend. You know, they must have released this report to like, fuck with the wedding and fuck with me. And it's just like so crazy to think about, like that you have such main character energy that you put yourself at the center of this and think that everyone is just against you. And that's the mindset she has taken into this job. It's the mindset she has continued to push. And it's very much an Elon mindset as well. I mean, she also over that weekend got phone calls from old advertising colleagues pressuring her to step down. And that was part of what she thought

was going on, that these people who she knew, who she was close with and had invited to her wedding had like waited until she was in this moment of celebration to put this pressure on her to step down and distance herself from Elon. So, you know, it's really this kind of grand conspiratorial thinking that we see with a lot of the people who spend a lot of time on X and spend time in leadership at X. Yeah. So, so basically like the clap, this is going to be with us for a while, correct? If you had to pick in 30 years or 50, let's see, how old is he? 52? So 40 years. Where is he? Is he Howard Hughes? Is he Henry Ford? Is he someone else? He's going to be in such a radical place, you know, and maybe those comparisons aren't even

apt anymore because he's going to go further than those. And yeah, I just, it's not a great trajectory for him, I think. We talked about the sort of victimization mentality that's going on here. And I think that that's going to continue. He's really invested in that, even though he has the biggest account on the platform. He has a massive voice all around the world. And so I think that that journey of self-pity and radicalization really continues from here. All right, then.

Yay. Anyway, thank you, Kate Conger and Ryan Mack. It's a great book. It's called Character Limit, How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, Kate. Thank you both. It's really a pleasure. Thanks, Kara. Thanks, Scott. All right, Scott, that was interesting. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like to go first? Why don't you go first, Cara?

Fails. I think the continued attacks on Asians in Ohio by the chaos of the Trump stuff is really, it just, it takes on a life of its own online and everywhere else. And it creates all kinds of really disturbing, you know, the repetition of lies is something everyone says it's an obvious lie, but this is more than that. It creates this idea that just doesn't go away. And so I really find, I just find it leads to all kinds of bad outcomes. I do hope that Tim Walz can shut it down in that debate with J.D. Vance, but there's a lot of people making excuses that he wants to call attention to things. But to call attention via lies is really absolutely repulsive, I think. And in my win,

I think I really, I'm really excited for a bunch of movies in theaters, as I've said, for the fall. I'm seeing lots of them come out. But I'm very excited for like 10 movies that just showed at the, I think it was the Venice Film Festival. They just all look great.

And so even though Hollywood's struggling, it looks like there's all these really interesting, this Demi Moore movie, Angelina Jolie, a lot of, especially women. I saw this amazing movie that's premiering next week in the United States called Lee, and it's with Kate Winslet. And it's about the photographer Lee Miller, who did that famous photo of her taking a bath in Hitler's bathtubs with the dirty boots right on the front. Dirty from Dachau. She had just been to Dachau, and then she took a bath in Hitler's bathtub in, I think it was Munich, it must have been, or Berlin. Anyway, no, it was Munich. And Hitler was dying right when she was taking that bath, which is committing suicide with Eva Braun. I just thought this was an astonishing movie. Kate Winslet is so fantastic. She really goes there with this, you know. She's beautiful, but she looks haggard in this movie, really.

Purposely, she's obviously covering. This is a woman who is a model for her early career and quite striking and beautiful. Man Ray, she was amused for a lot of famous artists too. And she then turned around and did the most astonishing war photography, including one of the first people to get to the concentration camps with these pictures that are devastating. It's a wonderful, wonderful movie called Lee, again. Kate Winslet, she hugged me once, and my life has never been the same.

Yeah, she's outstanding. My favorite original scripted drama, I think of 2020 was, or 2021, was The Mayor of Easton. Is that what it was called? Oh, Mayor of Easton. Yeah, Mayor of Easton. She was fantastic in that. And also Jean Smart, another person, played her mother. The two of them together.

Oh, fantastic. There's a fantastic scene between Jean Smart and Kate Winslet in the series. And I won't spoil the premise, but she basically is saying, you know, you weren't a great mom. And she's like, you're right, I wasn't. And I forgave myself. And she says to her daughter, she says, you need to forgive yourself. It's very powerful. Yeah.

Gene Smart just won the Emmy. So good. Anyway. Okay. My win, and I need some disclosure here. My wins, Vox, Kara, the producers give me license to say what I want and occasionally get upset if I'm not meticulous about the data. But this does not represent the views of anyone but Scott. My win here is, I believe, the IDF and the Mossad collaborated, although they haven't taken credit for it, to pull off what I would argue is the most precise

anti-terrorist operation in history. The Padram-Wakitaki detonations in Lebanon led to significant casualties. The first wave on September the 17th, at least 12 people were killed and more than 2,750 were injured, including two children. The second wave on September the 18th, 2024, at least 30 more people were killed. But at the outset of the war, one of the bigger criticisms, and I have empathy for this criticism, was that the bombing and the operations in Gaza, while according to John Spence, the head of the Urban Warfare Institute, that the ratio of combatants to civilians was greater than or better, if you will, than most recent wars, there was legitimate empathy and concern about so many innocent civilians being killed. And in this instance, you know, these are enemy combatants who have been designated by Israel and the U.S.

as terrorists. And the genius of interrupting the supply chain to put three to five grams, excuse me, of RDX in explosive, not 10 grams that would have blown these people in half. And then it's come out today that they actually had operatives following them around to make sure that they weren't too close to proximity to other people. I think the media fails to recognize in the West is that the U.S. continues to engage in very similar operations, specifically drone strikes. From 2004 to 2018 in Pakistan, we've killed somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 people using drones. In Yemen, in the last 22 years up until the present, we've killed somewhere between

1,000 and 1,300 people. And the ratio or more civilians, there's been much more collateral damage in our drone strikes than were executed here. I find there's a media bias. I see across CNN that all I see is Israel's actions threaten escalation of a war, but I would argue they're already at war since October of 2023. True, there has been a significant escalation this week. Well, I would argue. The rockets and the airstrikes. Sure, but I would argue that they've been at war. Hezbollah has fired more than 8,500 rockets into Israel since October. Over 80,000 civilians have been displaced from northern regions of Israel. To be fair, in Lebanon, more than 100,000 civilians have also been displaced. I think these entities have been at war for a while. And I picked up the New York Times

on my flight back from Madrid today, and the lead story was a guest opinion by a gentleman named Michael Walzer. And the title was, Pager Bombs Don't Belong in a Just War. I find the terms just and war kind of interesting, an interesting combination of wars. But he's saying Israel would be using the tactics of the terrorists it condemns. And what I find is that there's sort of no winning, if you will, for Israel here. The initial condemnation was they weren't being precise enough. And the idea of figuring out a way to find terrorists, these people weren't wearing pagers to get messages on substitute teaching for civics class the next day. These are combatants

planning terrorist acts. Agreed. And let me say, the New York Times did refer to Hezbollah as a militant group designated as a terrorist organization. There's a difference between the reporting and these opinion pieces, for one. Agreed. Agreed. It was their lead story.

When you say the media, I'm like, well, there's a difference between some guy who writes an opinion piece and— I agree. But even active versus passive— I don't love everything from the New York Times, but I think they've been very clear that Hezbollah is a militant terrorist organization. Fair enough. What I'll make is my, that's my win here,

is I think this will go down in history as the most precise anti-terrorist operation in history. And the genius here, the bravery, and the effectiveness. And I would argue that while it's a temporary escalation, that this type of action, this type of bold action, actually, in my view, brings a greater likelihood of a sustainable peace here. I just don't think these folks were gearing up for peace. So my loss, if you will, I've been thinking a lot about anti-Semitism with the election coming up. I just had Dan Siener on the Raging Moderates pod, and he claims that the

anti-Semitism he sees coming out of the far left, he finds more scary. And I would argue that just as in domestic politics, the left and the right seem to come together for reckless spending, in domestic politics, the left and the right seem to come together for reckless spending. I would argue that anti-Semitism throughout history is a virus that infects both the far left and the far right. And it's unfair, in my opinion, to assign anti-Semitism to any one political party. It is a virus that keeps popping up. It finds purchase almost everywhere. And I think the far left has not been great on this issue. At the same time, on the far right, as represented by Donald Trump in a speech to the Israel American Council National Summit in September 2024, Trump suggested that if, no joke, if he lost the election, Jewish voters would be partially to blame. He stated that the Jewish people would have a lot to do with the loss, a comment that Jewish organizations and political figures have condemned as reminiscent of historical anti-Semitic scapegoating. Additionally, Trump warned that Israel might not survive if Vice President Kamala Harris were elected, further exacerbating fears that his rhetoric is fueling anti-Semitism by blaming Jewish voters for political outcomes.

So in sum, my win here is I think what the IDF and the Mossad pulled off, actually, I think the West has a vested interest in destabilizing and terrorizing terrorists. We have done it well. Every other Western nation would respond as aggressively, if not more aggressively. And I find that the media's portrayal of it, they immediately go to, well, the acts of October 7th require nuance and some empathy for both sides. And then when Israel goes in with the most precise attack ever levied against terrorists, there's immediately calls of, they call it war crimes. There's immediately calls of, they call it war crimes. I just find there's a double, triple, and quadruple standard for the IDF and for Israel. Perhaps. But I do think Trump's statements, he's a presidential candidate.

Agreed. That's my fail. I think anti-Semitism finds a home on the far left and the far right. And it's just a shame that that's the one place they meet. Well, none of it is. Escalation is always, at some point, these people have got to find some way to get to peace. And I understand that Hamas and Hezbollah are not part of that solution, but this could spin out of control in a way that's incredibly dangerous. And when Donald Trump's making remarks like the Jews are the reason I'll lose, it's really it's not it's not a good thing. Anyway. All right. Thank you for that, Scott. Uniglow. Uniglow.

Uniglow. In any case, it's scary. It's very scary. But I find the whole Middle East very scary at this moment in time. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. And go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that is the show.

We'll be back on Friday for more. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andertad engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mille Saverio. Nishat Kerouac is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show

wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nmymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a great rest of the week.